My parents told me later that the head of the school called them and confided that she was worried I was setting myself up for failure. I was the only seventh grader who’d dared to sign up to perform. Mom and Dad spelled out the risks and asked me gently if I was—um—sure I wanted to go ahead? I said that I did, and from that point forward they became my cheerleaders and support team. Dad sharpened my every dance move (definitely the wrong parent for the job), including a corny pratfall. Mom helped me figure out what to wear—a black leotard, pink tights, and a top hat. She found a black cane to complete the outfit.
The night of the show, they stood at the back of the auditorium, more nervous than I was. The master of ceremonies announced that I was the youngest student to appear in the production. The audience erupted in cheers. I strode into the spotlight on the strength of that sound. I got a laugh on the fall, and I had a blast. There were no belly flops. Two and a half minutes later, I floated offstage listening to raucous applause, surely not because of my talent, but because I was the underdog and had given everything I had.
Backstage, a senior dancer, tall and kind, opened his arms and embraced me.
“Miss Cabaret!” he said. Life started looking up. I couldn’t wait to perform again.
In many ways, my parents have always been at the back of the room. The support I felt from them that day gave me resolve to take the leap in front of that intimidating audience, and many others in years to come. I knew they’d be there to help me put myself back together with every subsequent failure—or at least to help me craft a good story out of it.
I felt their presence even when we weren’t in the same place. When I left home the first time, years later, for a month at Phillips Exeter Academy, the summer after my sophomore year in high school, Mom wrote me a letter. We were all sad to be apart.
Dear Kim—
It’s been two weeks since that first Monday morning when Daddy and I sat at breakfast, slumped. We felt like there was a big hole upstairs where you used to be….Ashley has a middle ear infection from spending 8 hours a day under water. The new car is happily slurping up gasoline and Daddy put a scratch in the bumper. Jay is rolling in the dough from his paper route. He allows Ashley to come with him on collection days, with pigtails and cherub smile, to increase his tips.
But some things are still the same: Your room is still as you left it. The dining room table still has piles of paperwork. (But Grandma coming may help with all that—I’ll have to clean everything up.)
Bless you—and keep up the good work. You’ve got a cheering squad here: a private applause section.
Loving you—
Mom
That’s what my mother was for me during my childhood, more than anything else: my private applause section. And I understand now what she means about an empty space where a much-loved person used to be.
I learned to lie in my teens. It was liberating after years of striving to be a model child.
I told Mom that my boyfriend’s parents would absolutely be at the party at his house when really they were away for the weekend. I said I’d take a taxi home. Instead, I rode shotgun a little too fast in a popular kid’s dilapidated car. I fibbed when I said I’d spent an evening watching a movie with a friend when actually I was drinking beer with a crowd of kids on the local golf course. When the police arrived, I tore my shin open trying to climb over a thorn bush. Mom saw the gash. “I just tripped at Amy’s house,” I said. She seemed to believe me, maybe because both of us preferred to think I was a good girl.
As the oldest of three siblings, I wanted to appear flawless. It may have seemed to people who knew our family as if I could tell my mother anything, but the truth was some topics were off-limits. Mom could be a wonderfully supportive listener when she wanted to hear what I was saying—about my next English paper or a squabble with a girlfriend. But more sensitive discussions about other aspects of teen life were smothered before they began.
One day when I was about twelve, I asked her if it was okay to shave under my arms. She said, “I was wondering when you were going to notice you needed to,” and that was the end of the discussion. I remember thinking, Why didn’t you just tell me?
We never had a sit-down chat about the birds and the bees. Mom sent Dad to my room to do that. And there are some things a daughter just doesn’t want to hear from her father, no matter how cool he is. Like “Your breasts will become cone-shaped.”
Ew, Dad! Really?
I turned to my friends for acceptance, support, and information during those years, and worked hard not to disappoint either of my parents. But that meant I lived a partly secret life, hiding my teen rebellion and missing some of the guidance I needed from them. It was an unfortunate cycle, and Mom and I drifted apart. She worried about me, no doubt, and sensed the distance between us. Perhaps as an attempt to be more involved in my life, she offered unsolicited advice on the choices she knew about—how I spent my time (not enough on homework), who my friends were (some stayed out too late and partied too much), and what I wore (she hated my glasses and my ripped jeans). She was also having trouble sleeping, suffered from headaches, and got increasingly annoying skin rashes from the sun and allergies. I’m sure I was less forgiving than I should’ve been.
She is too controlling, I thought. My curfew was earlier than all of my friends’. I agreed to wake my mother up to tell her I was home safely, but that system was torturous for both of us. I tried myriad ways to do it gently—a whisper, a light touch on her arm. But every time, she bolted up in bed and shrieked.
Secretly I rolled my eyes. Why can’t she just relax?
It was obvious when my mother was upset, not initially because she told me so, but because she started closing doors a little harder than usual, or gave me one-word answers until I begged her to say what was wrong. My family, including my more-passive father, shared a common understanding: Nobody’s happy if Mom’s not.
Though I hated her criticism, I knew she loved me. Her intentions were good. She wanted me to become a strong, self-sufficient, intelligent adult, a better person than she.
—
I did feel her full support when it came to my dream of becoming an actress. She thought the prospect was as exciting as I did, and she loved watching me perform, but she was never a typical stage mom. Auditioning should be fun, she told me, and if it wasn’t, I shouldn’t do it. Her faith that my goal might be realistic helped both of us get through our harder times.
After eighth grade, my two-year private school allotment ran out. My parents told me we couldn’t afford the tuition any longer. I loved my teachers and the dance program, and had actually started to make a few friends at Fieldston by then. So I asked Mom and Dad if I could try getting a professional acting job in New York to pay for another year myself. It was a crazy idea—that I could make a lot of money quickly by acting—but my parents told me to go for it.
Mom took me to my first audition. Miraculously, I booked it, a commercial for the National Dairy Board. I was a featured ballerina in a group of dancers. But almost every identifiable part of me fell to the cutting room floor except for a brief glimpse of the bun on top of my head, a quick shot of my arm, and (debatably) my foot. I was crushed about being cut out but soon realized the job was a huge blessing regardless.
Over time, I made enough from residuals from that single thirty-second spot to cover another year of private education. But because the money didn’t quite come in soon enough, I wound up enrolling for ninth grade in the public school in Rye, where we’d just moved. Nevertheless, the milk-ad money turned out to be just what I needed as a young actor. It paid for professional head shots and travel expenses for meetings for the next couple of years. At age fourteen I was signed by the William Morris Agency. My parents were thrilled.
Dad helped me learn lines. Mom weighed in on clothes (though we fought about short skirts) and sometimes drove me to Manhattan for auditions. Finally I started appearing in more commercials—for Stridex pads, Pizza Hut, and o.b
. tampons (Mom didn’t seem to mind that I was talking about my period in front of the whole world, and that was shocking). My senior year I was cast in an ABC Afterschool Special called Stood Up, based on a true story about a girl whose prom date was a no-show and she sued him. I played the bad girl, Vanessa, who got to go to the dance. In one scene I rode off on a motor scooter with the young man I’d stolen, glaring at the jilted girl, my hair flapping in the wind.
I applied to colleges in the beginning of my senior year—nine of them, because I worried most would reject me. I sat at Mom and Dad’s typewriter (newly upgraded to electric!) and pounded out each application individually. My parents helped me craft my essays, and proofread every page. My mother came with me for on-campus interviews and shared my enthusiasm when the letter of acceptance arrived from Northwestern University outside of Chicago.
After I left home in 1989, tensions with Mom subsided. We needed space between us so we could miss each other. I told my agent in New York I wanted to focus on getting a college education, and my mother respected that. I’d be taking classes in the history of drama and doing behind-the-scenes crew work as well as acting. But I’d also be taking basic subjects like astronomy, German, and macroeconomics.
I was surprised that extracurricular activities at Northwestern were even more competitive than the showbiz scene in New York. I wasn’t cast much when I was a freshman or during the first part of my sophomore year. Despite trying out for almost everything, I was mostly relegated to sewing costumes and focusing lights onstage. But the behind-the-scenes work gave me an appreciation for how much effort it takes to launch a production.
—
One afternoon in the fall of my sophomore year, I had no idea that I was on the verge of stepping onto a path that would alter the rest of my life.
My friend Abby, a fellow student in the middle of an internship in a casting office in Chicago, stopped me in the hall of the theater building. She told me that Steve Martin was starring in a remake of the old classic Father of the Bride. The producers were searching nationwide to fill the role played originally by seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Taylor. The planned lead in the new version, Phoebe Cates, had dropped out to have a baby.
I figured I had no chance of getting the part, so there was no need to stress about just another audition. Although I had a boyfriend, being a bride or even playing one was the furthest thing from my mind. I was nineteen and had just told my agent to back off for four years. But what the hell, I thought, it might be a fun adventure for an afternoon. I told Abby I would go to the meeting.
My head hurt that day. Maybe I was dehydrated. Maybe I was hungover. I almost didn’t go. And then that mom-voice inside me whispered, Maybe it’ll be a great story one day! Besides, I’d never taken the El from the campus in Evanston to Chicago before, and I wanted to see if I could figure out the train system.
I didn’t get lost, I had fun reading the two scenes in the meeting, and I found my way back to campus. Done. I didn’t even tell anyone else I’d gone.
But then, surprisingly, Abby phoned to say I had a callback, in LA. So I had to call my agent and parents and fill them in. Everyone was delighted. I skipped classes for a day, flew to California on the studio’s dime, read with the director, Charles Shyer, and got invited to a separate meeting with Steve Martin. It went smoothly, despite my nerves about acting with one of my favorite comedians. As I left, Steve told me in front of Charles that I’d done well, especially under intimidating circumstances. I thought, No matter what happens, someday I can tell my kids that once upon a time Steve Martin gave me a compliment.
After I returned to campus, my agent, Jen, called from New York to tell me that I hadn’t gotten the part—Duh, I thought—and she hadn’t been told why.
I wondered if I even wanted to be an actor anymore. I was tired of other people calling the shots for me, telling me no. Maybe I needed a more reliable profession. I toyed with transferring into Northwestern’s journalism school. My parents thought that was a terrific idea.
So did I, until Hollywood beckoned again. I learned later that the producers were having so much trouble casting the role, they went back and looked at old tapes of people they’d already dismissed. In bed with the flu, Charles’s partner, Nancy Meyers, saw something in my audition she hadn’t seen before. Now they wanted me to read once more with Steve Martin, as well as (gasp) Diane Keaton, in a full-on screen test.
Who needs a reliable profession?
I skipped class again and flew back to LA. Reading with me off camera, Steve was calm and kind, and Diane’s quirky, self-deprecating smile put me at ease. When it was over, Nancy told me, “You’ll be hearing from us sooner rather than later.”
The next couple of days back in Chicago passed in slow motion. I could think of nothing else. Coincidentally, Mom, Jay, and Ash were visiting me at school for the weekend, and all we talked about was what if. We couldn’t help ourselves. I imagined my dream becoming a reality. A great role. A huge Hollywood movie. Incredible actors—people I’ve always looked up to. And then I fought with myself. It’s just a dangling carrot. The chances are still really slim.
Aren’t they?
—
We yearned for distraction and went to Chicago to see a play with my boyfriend, Mike. I heard not a word of the first act. At intermission I called my agent again from a pay phone in the lobby.
“You got it!” Jen said.
“Shut up!” I yelled. I nodded to my mother, next to me. She screamed. We jumped up and down and collected an audience of our own. Mom hugged strangers.
I called my dad from the same phone and told him the news, and we skipped the second half of the play. All the way home, we sang the Blues Traveler’s song “But Anyway” as loudly as we could out of the open-air windows of Mike’s Jeep. It was a great stress release. We didn’t talk. We were all in shock.
Back in my dorm room that night, I looked at all the recently unpacked crates of books, clothes, and pictures that were supposed to accompany me through my sophomore year. I’d hoped for a chance like this since I was a girl, but suddenly I was scared. I was grateful my mother was there with me to hold my hand and encourage me to take deep breaths.
The phone rang. It was Nancy Meyers. She congratulated me, told me that I needed to book myself a first-class ticket to Los Angeles for the next morning, and said she’d pay me back. (It was more than I’d ever put on my college credit card.) I hadn’t realized I would have to leave so soon. She asked to speak to my mom.
“I just want you to know,” she said, mother to mother, “there are a lot of crazy people in Hollywood, but Charles and I are not two of them. We don’t do drugs. We’re parents ourselves, and we’ll treat Kim like a daughter. We’ll take care of her.”
I don’t know if it had yet occurred to my mom that she was sending me into a potentially dangerous situation, but the call was reassuring to all of us. Nancy never suggested that Mom or Dad should fly out with me. She never spelled out exactly how long I’d be living in California. I was going alone. But not unprepared, as Mom assured me that night. All those years of auditions in New York City, my growing pains at Fieldston, and my recoveries from real and proverbial belly flops over time had strengthened me more than I realized. Mom knew that. At least she made me think she did.
—
Shooting the movie was the hardest and most exhilarating work I’d ever done. The days were long, usually fifteen-plus hours at a time, with often less than a twelve-hour turnaround from leaving the sound stage or location to starting over the next day. I was by myself in an unfamiliar city in a high-profile film. The pressure was exhausting. Everyone on the set was friendly and supportive, but the stress and lack of sleep made me sick several times.
My nightmares were so vivid I’d wake up sobbing and terrified. Some made sense. Others baffled me.
I was hanging off a cliff. Every branch I grabbed to save myself was too thin, and broke….Steve Martin was hacking his own face with a razor blade….I flapped
my arms and flew away from my family, high over treetops….I was getting married. But I got ready before I was supposed to and Mom was mad….Mom got really sick. I was inconsolably worried about her….
Finally my mother flew out to watch me work and to play a small role in the filming of the wedding reception. It was a comfort to see her, and the cast and crew were welcoming. She loved her brief moments on camera, talking to Diane in a crowd. She was there for the filming of my “first dance” with the man I marry in the movie, George Newbern, who is still a dear friend. When we finished one of the takes, I came off the dance floor and found her crying.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I just hope you’re this happy when you get married for real,” she said.
Mom was often weepy then. She fretted over whether she’d been a good enough parent. She must have seen what I saw in my dreams—I was flying away from my family. We knew I would be forever changed by this experience, but we didn’t yet know how. Maybe she worried it was too late to impart wisdom to me, or struggled to figure out what her role in my life was supposed to be now. We needed to become friends, but we weren’t completely comfortable with that real-life role. We were both needy, so we alternated taking care of each other. She brought me warm soup and tea at the end of a long day. And I tried to reassure her.
“You’re a great mom,” I told her, again and again.
I took my family to Disneyland when my mother came back with my siblings to visit on a day off, and because Disney is the parent company to the movie studio, the Mouse not only paid for the tour of the park but gave us a private guide. We went to the head of every line, got free hot dogs, and felt like royalty. I bought a box of stationery and then accidentally left it in one of the cars on Space Mountain.
“Let’s go back and get another one,” Mom said, and she took off toward the other side of the park. Ash, Jay, and I followed her. When we got to the shop, a chain blocked the door and a sign told us they’d closed. We started to walk away. But then my mom stopped.
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